Nobody who lives here can afford to live here

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 1,240,977 residents were living in
the New Orleans metro as of July 2013, a 4 percent increase from April
2010.[1] However, the metro area now has 93 percent of its 2000
population of 1,337,726. In this brief, we examine 2013 demographic data
recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau and identify important
changes in metro area parishes since 2000 (or the best benchmark
available).

Some of this stuff, you probably already know about. The racial breakdown of Orleans Parish has been closely reported ever since Katrina. The city has gone from being 66.7% black in 2000 to 59.1% in 2013. What gets less attention, though, is that as the city has become more white, the surrounding parishes have become less so. Jefferson is down from 65.4% to 54.7%. St. Bernard.. which used to be 84.4% (!) white is now down to 64.7%.

All of this, by the way, is a major reason Mary Landrieu is in so much trouble. This is the first time she's faced an off-year election without being able to count on overwhelmingly strong numbers out of New Orleans. Yes, she will win Orleans Parish in overwhelming fashion. But there aren't the total votes available there that she needs anymore.

Also of note in this report are the cost of living numbers. You may be surprised to learn that, since 1999, there is no significant difference in the median income in Orleans Parish.

Everything is relative, though. So taking into account that the surrounding parishes and *gasp* the entire US are showing declining incomes, New Orleans can still claim to be "bucking the trend" at least a little bit.

And yet in real numbers, median income is slightly down. Meanwhile the poverty rate in New Orleans is practically the same as it was in 1999 (27% as compared with 28%).

All of which means... the rent is too damn high.

Obviously, this leads to certain stresses.

High housing costs can limit a region’s ability to attract and retain
the workforce essential for a healthy economy.[11] Severe housing cost
burdens of more than 50 percent of household income indicate a serious
problem in housing affordability. In 2004, the share of severely
cost-burdened renters in New Orleans and the U.S. was 24 percent. In the
nine years since, that share has spiked to 37 percent in Orleans while
rising to only 26 percent nationally.